one queen, two princesses, & their jesters

So things are better. Maggie slept almost all night last night- waking around 3am for about 15 minutes, just a little snuggle on the couch before she drifted off to sleep again. And I will say, when she falls asleep in my arms like that? It makes the fact that we’re up at 3am seem not so bad. Since she rarely sits still during the day, those snuggles are something I treasure. (But that doesn’t mean I want her to keep waking up in the middle of the night! Thankyouverymuch.)

She does have a bit of a cold. Poor kid was all congested last night, so I broke out the humidifier to try to help her sleep better, and maybe it worked? Who knows. We’ll see what happens tonight. I sure hope she sleeps good again, because I work tomorrow and I need my brain to be functioning at least at 50%. heh

It truly is amazing what a good night of sleep can do for your outlook on life though. Whether you’re 29 or 17-months-old, it makes a huge difference. We had a nice morning, went for a walk, played a little bit, then she took a 3-hour nap (!!!) during which I got some work done for clients and then even showered! So much accomplished!

She is developing quite the Attitude lately though. I daresay, Terrible Twos seem to have hit about 6 months early. Everything is Drama, and she has this insane need to throw ALL OF HER UNEATEN FOOD onto the floor after every meal. We have tried everything to get her to stop: yelling at her, ignoring her, explaining rationally that she can’t do that, saying ‘Uh-oh!’ because that’s her new favorite word, taking the food away from her (even though that means Dinner Over and Mom and Dad are still eating and we will have a screaming child who wants out of her high chair in about 2.1 seconds) Nothing works. And usually, when we yell at her? SHE LAUGHS AT US. I’m not even kidding. And then of course we have to hide our faces because DUDE it’s so cute and really kind of funny but we can’t let her see us laughing. Hi, we are Mature Parents.

I’m at a loss, honestly. I know she’ll grow out of it, and obviously she won’t be 12 and still throwing her food on the floor… but until then? There is a huge mess to clean up after each meal.

In other unrelated news, I wanted give you all a Kitty Update. It’s been almost 3 weeks since Scotty went to his new home, and just over 2 weeks for Gracie. I’ll start with Gracie, because that’s the easiest story: she’s doing very well. Dan’s uncle sends us regular updates (from an email address he set up just for Gracie, and the emails are ‘From’ her, how freaking cute is that?!) She is still not loving the other cat, but they aren’t hissing much at each other anymore, and she really seems to like her new Human. So I’m glad about that.

Scotty, on the other hand… argh. He’s doing okay. Better than the first week, when he wouldn’t eat and was acting depressed and hiding all the time. I think it was just a major shock to him to go from being inside with us all the time to being outside without a lot of human interaction all day. He is a People Cat and I worried that he would have a hard time with it. But apparently he’s doing better and seems to enjoy being outside now. And he’s getting along okay with the other two cats now too. The only problem? He keeps trying to sneak into the neighbors house. They have 3 little girls who LOVE the kitties next door, so he is lapping up the attention where he can get it. And one of the other cats also likes the attention, so now they’re competing… and word is that Scotty got into their house and PEED ON THEIR FLOOR. We’re pretty sure it was a ‘marking the territory’ kind of thing, because Taffy and Scotty are both vying for the attention of the girls. But still… I feel so bad that they have to deal with his Stupidity now! Dan had always said about him, ‘If we could bottle annoying and sell it, we would be MILLIONAIRES because we have Scotty.’

So, they’re both doing okay and adjusting relatively well, I guess. It is really strange to not have them here. Most of the time I kind of forget they’re not here, until I go to do something like bring groceries in the house. I always had to open and close the door REALLY FAST and then I’d trip over both of them coming up the steps. I’ll start watching for them and then realize they’re not here. Very strange.

Okay I’ve rambled enough. I need to get to bed just in case a certain someone decides she’s going to have a Cranky Night. Let’s hope not!!!!

10 Comments

We are having the food-throwing problem with Bun right now, too. I take the food away, and take her out of her chair. She is usually done, and she’ll actually just hang out in the kitchen for a while.

Sometimes she’s not done, and Mommy has to share her food. I’ll take that over the mess.

And I wanted to weigh in on the exercise post, too: This is the one thing I would desperately love to get back into my life, and I haven’t figured it out either. I already get up at 5:30 (okay 6) in the morning; I only have a 1/2 hour lunch (and I work in the middle of nowhere anyway), and then from end of work to kids’ bedtimes, I’m totally busy! No time to get down on the floor and do some crunches. Never mind that I would get down there and my kids would jump on me. And my hubby is not around in the evenings, so I can’t even go take a class!

The food on the floor issue is a big problem here too. We’ve also tried it all. The only thing that seems to help a tiny bit is trying hard to teach her the sign language for “finished” and “more” so we can attempt to communicate about when she’s done with her food another way.

@ambitious mrs: We did that a while back and it worked for a little bit.. but then she caught on (little Smarty Pants) and just screams at us instead. It’s quite lovely. :P I cannot wait until she can talk. I know I’ll be wanting her to shut up again most of the time, but at least I’ll know what she wants!!!

Heh, yep, the Terrible Twos started right around 18 months for Oliver too. (Although we don’t have the throwing food issue, we just have the not eating food issue.) And people are telling me it lasts until they’re FOUR… *deep breath* I don’t even want to think about the teenage years, or I’ll go nuts.

I’m sure lots of people will disagree with me, but once the cats start peeing outside of their litter box (and it’s not health e.g. kidney problem related) it’s usually a lost cause and they’ll just pee everywhere for the rest of their life…which sucks. :(

Eh, the joys of a toddler, huh? I think the sign language idea is great. I spent six weeks with a baby last summer and her parents were teaching her “more” and “all done” and sometimes she thought it was a game, and sometimes it worked! Good luck on that.

ohhh yeah. we don’t yet throw food. but we yell “NO NO NO NO NO” and shake violently in the high chair, I swear it looks like a seizure.

and now the new thing, Im just not going to eat, and repeat the word banana bananana over and over and over and over again. ummm yeah…. seriously.. take food insert in mouth and be quite for 2 seconds….